A discussion forum run by a seasoned Community College Instructor for those who want to share the pluses, minuses, rants, and fist bumps that come from teaching Anthropology at the undergraduate level. Gather up your pigs, yams, and banana leaf bundles and join the fun.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Compartmentalization: I have trying not to click on stories about the east African drought. Last week, I saw The Guardian had a photo slideshow up with pictures from Save the Children. I made it about half way through before the pain felt more than I could take. Better to focus on watering my flower bed in my own pathetic drought-y existence and be thankful that my brain is capable of walling off those feelings for a brief period of time. And be reminded of the reasons I teach.

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee...

Funny that my "thee" should be teaching. Well, maybe not so funny... the package that is "Africa" is always entwined with teaching for me.

The World's Most Beautiful Sociology Professor and I, recently, went to an all day workshop on social movements. In the days that followed, I found myself wondering why the system of education in our country was never part of the discussion. Anthropology as a social movement. It works for me. And yet some one half of our students in America our in Community Colleges where the discipline of Anthropology barely registers.

Today, I am eternally grateful for that "haply"--whatever it is that gives us humans hope.

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About Me

I have a Ph.D. in Anthropology with a specialization in Africa. I have taught at a variety of educational institutions but since 1991, I have taught full time at a Community College on the outskirts of Houston. I teach a diverse student population many of whom are first generation college-goers. Academic discussion and anthropological issues can seem to them to be exotic and meaningless endeavors. And they may be right.